Title: Rupture not transformation: “yahoozee” locating naija pop culture postcolonial, anti imperialist theory: “It’s all about the benjamins baby”.
I have been wanting to insert my two cents on the 19 for a while now and have reserved comment because i was still forming my ideas on how i thought it fit into our present location as nigerians, third worlders and a country whose citizenry and state (questionably they might be very clear) is mostly in denial about its location as a neocolonized state within a global capital order.
Prove of neocolonial status (they abound, but for the sake of the economist, that only understand resource control and production, whom i unfortunately have had the pleasure and eye opening encounter with recently, who also cannot/will not utilize thier imagination to concieve/consider, at least try to image a world, or at least acknowledge that capitalism works to create surplus TAKEN from whomever is neccessarilty constructed as “unacceptable/marginal and therefore disabled” ):
Ok to continue with the proof
- Free trade zones and commercial zones ideologized by state propagandas as “progress” for poor backward nigeria case in point: calabar
- a citizenry that are “educated” and colonized to think of capitalism and the conspicious accumlation of wealth and power to the purpose of domination as freedom as the only solution to domination. For instance: you can’t find a job: poor you turn to armed robbery, OR leabve the country and stick it to the white man by voluntarily exiling yourself from your homelands (which by the way leave it wide open and increasingly depopulated, because they are still human being in africa NOT desperate, suffering poor people in need of your janded priviledged help)
- Exile without recognizing and taking individual responsibility for the imperialist and capitalist destruction of economic and social structures so that you have to leave for a “better” quality of life
- Better quality of life spent as part of a colonizing peoples who literally continue to this day to engage in apartheid and genocidal measures against the original inhabitants of the land (applies to yankee mostly for what i know) while you complain about racism and the struggles of the “settler” as you remain mostly oblivious from the struggle of the original inhabitants without realizing or maybe just not caring much because the white people sure as hell won’t tell you, they’re too busy telling you how multicultural and committed to diversity they are, are you are merely concerned with bettering you’re quality of life.
- Quality of life: where you must learn to speak and engage much like a yankee, and unquestioned assimulation begins to take place. the ramifications? loss of culture and alienation from self are just a few side effects, not to mention the insatiable feeling of longing and sudden constructed space and distance from your home as you fully identify as an “immigrant” gratefull you should be.
- When you do return/speak think/talk about home you become an indirect and yet effective colonizer, from within as you propagate western ideals/values and expectations of progress without question.
- after you do make or if you are a 2/3/4 th generation immigrant and the years of accumulated linguistic, intellectuat, conceptual colonization has acquired full strength signaled by your accrued privilege and entitlement AND responsibility as a citizen of yankee nation then you start to think that you are well deserving and hardworking and have merited your accomplishments in life afterall you got good grades, made it out the ghetto and now make a surplus of anyway from 30k and above.
OR which is where the “criminals” (criminals in quote to emphasis how liberal value systems and consensus are made legal/laws and punish literally in an effort to monitor and control ‘other’ed disabled/diseased/racialized and stereotyped bodies) from incursions and protections of the dominant society. Not to say that robbery is right all i’m saying is that it is complicated as there are other non individualized factors such as ecomonic, social state sanctioned and structural that are erased, hidden and conveniently remain unaddressed (unstated, un deconstructed, unacknowledged and mostimportantly merely disturbed but not transformed in any meaningful way ) as people/bodies are constructed as criminals. Its not bloody fucking new.
but it is in my humble opinion misguided to say the least, to think or suggest that yahoozee which happens to be the prominent and solidly grounded rationale that i have been encountering everywhere of recent is RESISTANCE/transformation.
Why?
its too fucking simple and too easy…
first of all. important notes that guide/ground my logic: i think i read someone (buttigieg, A.J in teaching english and developing a critical knowledge of the global) reference Fanon to saying something like it is worse when one thinks that they are seperate/distanced from the master and therfore are hindering themselves from thier position so that they may understand how it is that they are being mastered so that they may find a way to begin to master the master and it is in this conflict,process, chaotic place of contradiction between agency and power/domination /oppressed notice those nasty boundaries become inefficient/not enough that transformation and resistance may and historically has occurred.
anyways how does yahoozee contribute to the capitalist global order and why isn’t enough: well for starters it is a rupture in imperialistic/colonial economic relations as it points clearly to the gaps in a meritocratic ideology used to maintain and legitimize oppression and inequality, after nigeria jagga jagga and everything scatter scatter, but it stops there. there is no disruption of the global capital order instead it reinforces it powerfully, and this time of course it is no longer simple/sufficent to blame the white man and deny agency, they get to claim “innocent” victim as they are the ones taken advantage of, as that pesky white mans burden rears it head and load once again. Below are clips from ABC news
- it is african (racialized, savage, inhuman, unethical and STUPID) body that starts to look monstrous as they “take” (which granted is rupture as it attempts to disrupt the economic flow of capital BUT NOT RESOURCES/CONTROL OF PRODUCTION) from thier victims.
- conspicuous consumption and spending primarily of western symbols of wealth and culture (dollars, bling, hummer) eurocentric consumerism is FULLY embraced and therefore the capital is returned to the western economy ANYWAYS.
- there is no “strategy” it is not meant to be resistance, nor in most cases is not meant fund say aids research and address the new pharmacological control of africa, food production, NO (if i am wrong please inform me)
- Emphasis on self empowerment, through indegenous culture/education is all but completely absent except in maybe lace purchases/real estate such that SUCCESS and efficient rupture/supposed resistance is completely located in a monetary nexus: CASH, DOLLARS to be precise. Capitalism thrives.
- as the support of capitalism and the accumulation of dollars is centralized then the ideology that is mostly responsible for all of this in the first place is reinforced and progated to new upcoming generations. imaginations and alternatives are limitied, out of the question and mostly not considered.
- mostly there is a devaluation of the self (in the face of such huge denial of humanity face with laws meant to do this: immigration laws for example that claim to be multicultural and yet refuse, reject the accrediation of professional lured from thier indigenous lands into exile to serve as the surplus CHEAP labour in colonizing western economies) who will drive the mofo taxicabs, clean houses and provide childcare for the white middle class while they live the quality and kind of life with organic food, soy milk and mac computers that they killed entire nations for.
- and even then with the system, is yahoozee a quantifiable, ‘legally’ marketable and employable skill? can you really put it on the resume since we’ve fully embraced a global capital order.
- one must not forget the way that it affects masculinity, as it produces highly, i repeat highly insecure men who want to prove how macho they are with how much money they have and are consequently more assholish, and uninteresting and expect to get whatever they want because of the money and complain that they can never find a woman who really likes/love them without the money when the money was all that was offered, shoved down her throat to begin with, when masculinity and patriachial relations are reinforced and poverty is feminized, what happens: women get raped and abused and dehumanized.
and so i conclude by noting that not only does it reinforce global capital order mostly everyday is for the thief and one day is for the owner: you ass will get caught, one day one day. the system of prison and incarceration as a means of control, monitioring and legitimizing the domination of racially stereotyped bodies is another story for another day.
so yeah, where if i had the opportunity i may very well consider it, not do i judge, nor do i not date yahoozeeites but i in no way delude myself to think that yahoozee is part of a larger network of radical resistance….does it present such possibilities capital YES.
